[Guide] What helps me with health anxiety
I've been putting a lot of thought into this whole situation we find ourselves in, and want to say what helps me. Hopefully it will be put in a way that helps.
Just remember that any one thing is not enough, you have to create mental "tools" in your mind. It takes time as well, it will not be instant, but you can get to the point where you can give yourself instant relief. Always remember even if you feel "just a little" better, in reality that is A LOT. Relish it. Relish feeling good.
1. You have anxiety - Recognize how it works.
Okay so you're on this site, you at least have the idea that you have anxiety. You know it is a very real feeling that something is wrong, at least non-specific, but usually specific as well. Now what happens when you feel this way. Slowly if you pay attention to how you feel, and what you are thinking when it starts, you can determine it's process.
A fact of anxiety is it will exacerbate (make worse) even the most innocuous (non-harmful) symptoms. What you may start to notice is how you "follow" a symptom in your mind. Something will crop up in your mind and then you will start paying attention to it. You can even eventually notice that the level of the symptom closely follows the level of anxiety. Then you can also start to notice that it isn't the symptom that's increasing it's your perception of it.
Alright now a bit of a disclaimer. Ignoring life threatening symptoms is not a good idea. The whole point is to develop a mental "tool" to differentiate and determine what is anxiety and what isn't. It takes patience and it gets better over time. Just always remember that anxiety blows up any symptom, and might even be completely caused by the anxiety. Learning how to recognize this is an AWESOME tool against anxiety. It doesn't hurt to get your vitals checked by a doctor, but deep down in a sense you might actually already know.
You can even almost take an outside view to your anxiety. Like you're looking at yourself from an outside perspective. You can almost laugh at how the process of anxiety happens when you look at it from the outside in. Remember past occurrences of anxiety, build a database in your mind of how it goes down. Pay attention not to the symptoms as much but the process of what you are feeling. The more you understand it, the more you can stop it at any point in it's process.
2. Relearn how to enjoy - Realize and practice the opposite of anxiety
At the same time as learning how to recognize and detect the pitfalls of anxiety, learn how to do the opposite of it. With anxiety you concentrate on feeling negative. You can get so bad off that you completely forget how to feel good. The worse off you are the more you'll have to relearn feeling good. The flip-side of this is the worse off you are, the more good it will feel to feel good. You can do this even when you're in the absolute throws of panic, pay close attention to how you feel. Now obviously you already are, but you're completely focusing completely on the negative. You can tell yourself that what you are experiencing is anxiety, and it is in your mind, and that it will go away, and that you are getting over it. Concentrate on how you are feeling better. Feeling good is what you teach yourself to pay attention more and more to.
3. Take care of yourself - Don't forget your basic needs
You might forget your basic needs, which can absolutely cause add to your anxiety. You have to take care of your basic needs.
- Eat regularly - Snack on healthy things.
- Drink enough water - hydration is important!
- Make sure you are "regular" - (I feel really weird and anxious if I don't regularly poop)
- Sleep enough - once you start feeling better this will become easier
- Bathe regularly - it's very comforting and you feel better about yourself
4. Find methods of self-comfort - Don't rely on others for assurance
Now being assured by others does help, but it's both taxing on others and inefficient. Once you start feeling better, THINK about it. Don't let it pass you by. Relish feeling good. Bathe in the feeling, even if it's only a little bit. A little bit goes A LONG way. Nothing alone works by itself, you have to do it all, but this is what I find helps the most. It really lowers general anxiety and frequency of attacks.
Your brain has all the chemicals it needs to feel better and good. It doesn't really take drugs, counseling or anything but yourself to make it happen.
Do things that you enjoy. If it's wintertime instead of feeling sad and crappy, try and think of it as cozy. Curl up and watch a good movie/tv show or read a good book. Eat comfort food.
Don't forget to enjoy life. Think positively.
5. It won't completely go away - Don't fret. Just remember your progress.
I don't think we'll ever truly be rid of this plague. You have to try and not slip into depression or worry of it returning. What might help with that is you need to realize it NEVER fully goes away. Anxiety is a natural process, it will always be part of us. What isn't natural is what causes us to feel it. Recognizing this helps.
You will still have attacks when you are most vulnerable. In my case it's when I'm sleeping. I'll be half asleep and I'll get a sinking feeling my heart. I think a lot of my symptoms are because of heart burn and gastrointestinal issues. They get exacerbated by laying down. To each their own though. You have to learn about yourself and your problem to be able to fight it.
Summary:
Realize you have anxiety, realize you can't trust your symptoms because of this.
Take care of yourself. Eat, sleep, hydrate, poop regularly etc. If you don't and you wonder why you're feeling crappy... Well... camon figure it out.
Self-assure/comfort. You can't rely on other people. You have to develop your own tools to help yourself.
Love life, concentrate on how good you feel. This is literally the opposite of anxiety. The more you do it, and more specifically the better you get at it the more effective it is.
Anxiety is part of us. It's natural. Feeling this way all the time is unnatural. If you've been feeling better and it creeps back just remember to fall back on what you've learned. Don't fret, you can stamp it out again.
I hope this helps. Anxiety sucks. I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy. I'm not the best at writing, but hopefully it gets the point across. Everyone is different and there isn't one fits all, but that's why I advise to develop your OWN methods that work for you using this as a guide.
One final tip, read read read. Read about your condition, understand it as much as you can. Otherwise if you don't know about your situation you might be doomed to forever live in it. Read the articles on this site too. Even if what I've said is already posted out there, it might still help drive it home.
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